Trending News Today: Potential Cuts to Children's Health Program Raises Concerns

A proposal by President Donald Trump to scale back $7 billion from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) raised red flags among both Democratic and Republican legislators, which is a sign of the challenges that lay ahead for efforts to reduce federal spending in the Senate, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It is a red flag with me,” Sen Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said regarding the proposed CHIP cuts, as reported by the Journal. “I’ve been a big proponent of CHIP from the beginning. It’s vital to our state.” However, officials from the Trump administration said the proposed cut would not have a negative effect on CHIP because it would target emergency funding that states can access in cases of higher than anticipated enrollment numbers.

Despite prior recommendations by the US Preventive Services Task Force that stated the cons for prostate cancer screening among men aged 55 to 69 years outweighed the benefits, a panel of health care experts are now saying that testing for prostate-specific antigens (PSAs) can save lives, according to the Associated Press. The panel said that men should decide for themselves, in consultation with their doctors, whether or not to be screened for PSAs. The panel cited new evidence that indicates PSA blood tests can slightly decrease the likelihood of prostate cancer death for some men. Although screening can sometimes lead to unnecessary treatment, the panel said that this can be avoided with close monitoring when cancer is detected.

Precision medicine may eventually treat depression as effectively as it does other diseases, according to STAT. Last month, Stanford announced the establishment of the Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness to explore the potential for this treatment approach. This is in addition to depression being one of the diseases targeted by All of Us, a campaign by the National Institute of Health that collects DNA and other data from 1 million Americans, according to STAT. Precision medicine has shown promise treating cancer but understanding is lacking regarding the underlying biology of mental illness, the article concluded.